


Silvergraphs

by Assassin_J



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Empire became a Republic, Gen, Nonbinary Wyman, One Shot, Other, Post-Dishonored 2, the Emily/Wyman is just brief mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 01:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12619600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assassin_J/pseuds/Assassin_J
Summary: Writember Day 3 - "Photograph"A couple years after Emily's return. Corvo POV on the past and how things have changed.





	Silvergraphs

Corvo landed in his chair with a heavy _pflump_. Today's weather was turning bad, and he felt it in the old ache of his right knee, especially right after an hour-and-a-half of combat training for the junior guards. He reached into the small table beside him and poured a round glassful of Gristol Cider, his favorite. Drinking it slowly, he let the brew seep into his soul and let his mind wander.

His eyes alighted on a wide book bound in green fabric, sitting out atop the shelf across his study. His album of silvergraphs; someone had moved it.

Setting down the half-drunk glass, he glanced around the room for any other signs of mischief, but there were none. He got to his feet and went over to inspect the album.

It was an old album, dating back to the days when Emily was young; the first picture in there was of her and Jessamine at some noble's garden party. Corvo remembered it well. Emily had been restless, had slipped away under the table during dinner when many of the adults were distracted with drink. Jessamine then silently asked her Royal Protector to watch the roving girl, so Emily and Corvo had played hide-and-seek in the noble's hedge maze, placed a fallen bird's nest back in its tree, and dunked their faces in the fountain with bubbling laughter.

Corvo wiped at his eyes. There were not very many images of Jessamine's rule preserved here, as the silvergraphing process had been more costly and time-consuming then, but each image that was here brought forth a dozen or more vivid memories.

Someone had also placed a clipping from the Dunwall Courier; paragraphs giving an overview of the true events surrounding Jessamine's murder. The accompanying silvergraph was of Emily seated on the throne of the Empire, Corvo standing beside her, a mix of emotions on her little round face. It was hardly the first time she'd sat there, but every previous time had been for amusement, when the press and the other nobles weren't around to hear her give pretend commands to Corvo and the imagined legion of soldiers that stood in formation behind him, or to see her preside over the mock trial of Jessamine who was charged with unlawful enforcement of too-early bedtimes.

Corvo tilted the page a little in the lamplight. That was nearly seventeen years ago; had he really already gained some grey around the temples and some lines around the eyes? Or were those just an artifact of the silvergraph or of the aged paper it was mass-printed on? He squinted at it a bit more before sighing and taking the album back to his chair, for his knee was protesting again, some nerve pinched and inflamed uncomfortably.

He plopped back into the grey-blue cushioning and picked up his cider for another couple sips. The alcohol would dim his pain, as usual. Then he picked up the album again and let it fall open to a later page.

And he smiled at what he saw. This silvergraph was the reason the album was out; someone must have added it in just earlier today. It was a lovely print of Emily and Wyman at their wedding. That was several months ago by now, but it had taken a frustrating amount of time to have the silvergraph reproduced so that it could be displayed in a frame in their bedroom and sent out to distant friends, as well as stored here. 

Wyman looked so happy in eir pinstripe suit. Emily loved em so much. Together they were doing such wonderful things, working for changes to improve life in the nation. The most major of those changes, which everyone was still adjusting to, was reorganizing the Empire into a republic: The Republic of Kalia. (Some well-meaning people had pushed for "The Republic of Kaldwin", but Emily made it clear that she wouldn't be comfortable with a straight-up eponym.)

So, yes, now it had been just over a month since the Empress and Emperex of the Isles had become the President and Vice President of Kalia. Corvo's title had changed as well, to "Presidential Protector". It certainly didn't roll off the tongue as easily as "Royal Protector", but he wasn't displeased.

An election would be held in the next Month of Nets. The people would choose whether they still wished the Kaldwins to head their sprawling nation. Corvo couldn't deny he felt a bit anxious for the possibility of someone else taking the reins. And the Presidential Protector would be duty-bound to whoever won the election, so unless the new President dismissed him from service, the work would keep him from his daughter and her spouse, the only family he had remaining in this world.

He set down the album, chugged the last half-inch of his cider glass, and sighed. Flipping back purposefully a few pages, he found another news clipping, the one with the silvergraph of Emily standing before one of Delilah's enormous posters as it was being torn down. A delighted crowd of Dunwall citizens was cheering on the fringes of the image, blurry because they were moving too fast for silvergraphy to properly catch. But Corvo remembered well the great cheers and applause Emily received in the days and weeks after her return.

Perhaps he didn't need to worry about the election that much after all. At least not this time around.


End file.
